Team Canada joins Scotland, Norway, and Switzerland in the semifinals of the 2019 World Junior Curling Championships unfolding in Nova Scotia tonight.
A 9-5 win over Sweden’s Daniel Berggren on Thursday afternoon put skip Tyler Tardi (who plays out of Langley Curling Centre, along with fellow teammates Sterling Middleton, Matthew Hall, Alex Horvath, and Rylan Kleiter) in to the semifinals.
“Every team that’s going to to make the playoffs is obviously deserving of it, so I think either way we’re happy to be there and no matter who we play, we’re just going to give it our all,” Tardi said after Thursday’s game in Liverpool.
Then a 21-1 round-robin victory over New Zealand this morning (Friday) secured Team Canada second place in the playoffs, and will see them marched up against Norway in the semifinals.
So, the team will be back on the ice again tonight, at 7:30 p.m. AST. The game against Norway will be be live streamed on World Curling TV. https://youtu.be/UsRBsPTofWA.
“We’re feeling good right now,” Tardi said, after admitting to what he called a rocky start to the week and championships. “We’re really happy, and feeling confident… feeling good going into the playoffs.”
He expressed gratitude to the crowd, family, friends, and even complete strangers cheering them on – whether they made their shots or not.
“Thank you everyone for your words of support and encouragement! We appreciate it very much,” he said.
While hoping to make it into the gold-medal round and hoping they can defend their world title, Tardi said that has yet to be determined. He insisted his team will simply take it “one step at a time,” and see what comes.
If they do make it through to the gold-medal round, the local skip speculated they’d once against be going up against Scotland. That is the team they beat last year for the title of world champ.
